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Updated: June 4, 2025
When a bright sun shines into the breeding-cage, it is not long before the insects form couples on the bunch of everlastings. Hoisted on the female, whom he embraces and holds with his two pairs of hind-legs, the male sways his head and corselet up and down, all in a piece. This oscillatory movement has not the fiery precipitation of that of the Cantharides; it is calmer and as it were rhythmical.
I am now upon the causse and already see the castellated outworks of the 'Devil's City. The city itself lies in a hollow, and I have not yet reached it. The mule-path fortunately leads in the right direction. On my way multitudes of very dark, almost black, butterflies flutter up from the short turf, which is flecked with the gold of yellow everlastings.
No bright yellow like everlastings, no luminous straw-colour; at most a heavy opaque yellow for the hair of his female saints; no truly bold orange, no violet, either tender or strong, unless in the half-hidden lining of a cloak or in the scarcely visible robe of a saint, cut off by the frame; no brown that does not lurk in the background. His palette, as may be seen, is very limited.
The deep-glowing sumacs, the asters purple and white mixed with flaming goldenrod, in a splendid audacity of color such as only One artist dare venture on; the occasional dash of scarlet upon a maple, a first wave of the great tide that is sweeping up to cover the whole north country; the masses of yet unbroken green left neither dimmed nor dusty by the generous, moist summer; the oaks that will long hold their green flag in unchanging tint, as if "no surrender" were written on it, and then, last of all the trees, change to a hue of matchless depth and richness, like the life-blood of a noble heart that shows its full intensity only just before death's translation falls upon it; the separate tint of each leaf and vine, "good after its kind;" the soft whiteness of the everlastings in the hill-pastures; the reaped buckwheat fields heaped with their sheaves, stubble and sheaves alike drenched in a fine wine of color; the solemn interior of the woods, with the late sunlight touching the shafts of the pines; the partridge-berry and the white mushroom growing beneath, as in a cathedral one sees bright-faced children kneeling to say their prayers at the foot of the solemn pillars; the masses of light and of shadow one cannot say which is the tenderer lying on the cool meadows as evening draws on; the voice of unseen waters, the voice of the wind in the pines.
"Go to the garden," responded the old woman, "cut some evergreens, everlastings, and dragon's blood; with these plants make a decoction in a caldron, and then sprinkle some of it over me." After saying this the old woman died, without uttering a prayer.
She led the way into a room which was almost gay with veld everlastings, pictures from illustrated papers, small flags of the navy and the colonies, the Boer Vierkleur and the Union Jack. "I like to have things cheerful here," Al'mah said almost gaily. "Sometimes I have four or five convalescents in here, and they like a little gaiety.
So murmuring, he was about to turn towards the town, when close by that child's grave he saw another. Round that other there were pale "everlastings," dwarfed blossoms of the laurestinus; at the four angles the drooping bud of a Christmas rose; at the head of the grave was a white stone, its sharp edges cutting into the starlit air; and on the head, in fresh letters, were inscribed these words:
As he drew near the bottom of the gorge he saw that on the borders of the stream, wherever the soil was moist, grew thousands upon thousands of white arums, "pig lilies" as they call them in Africa, which were now in full bloom. He had noticed these lilies from above, but thence, owing to the distance, they seemed so small that he took them for everlastings or anemones.
The short-lived grass, green now as that of an English meadow, was picked out into patterns by the scarlet of the Running Postman; purple sarsaparilla festooned the stems of the scrub; there were vast natural paddocks, here of yellow everlastings, there of heaths in full bloom.
A low fire was burning in the grate and the blind napped against the window. The draught blew the everlastings on the mantelpiece together with a little dry, dusty sound like the rustle of a breeze in dried twigs. Mrs. Feverel sat bending over the fire, and he thought as he saw her that it would need a very great fire indeed to put any warmth into her.
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